July 2010 Recap

Hello, my fellow bloggers and bloggette. A new month is upon us, and as always, I'm going to reveal a snapshot of the past calendar month. I read seven books, watched twelve movies, watched a season of TV, and beat a video game for a total of 21 posts. Sweeney read a book, watched two seasons of TV, and beat three video games for a total of 6 posts. Trevor read a book, watched a movie, and watched three seasons of TV (but combined them into one post) for a total of 3 posts. Marissa watched three TV seasons, and those were her 3 posts. Webber made 1 post: a book. Keith made 1 post: a movie. That means the stupendous six combined for 10 books, 14 movies, 9 TV seasons (but 7 posts), and 4 video games. What can we take away from this? July was a reading month. Video games are great and all, but I guess as a whole we just did not feel the desire to play many. Also noteworthy: more than half of the TV season posts were seasons of Mad Men. So July, in a nutshell, was a month for reading, avoiding video games, and catching up on Mad Men.

That was the group. Now let's get down to specifics. I failed to reduce my backlog on all three fronts; I beat a game but bought three new ones for a net of -2. I watched thirteen DVDs but bought 16 new ones for a net of -3. And I read 7 books but bought 10 new ones for a net of -3. Here would be a great place to play the "failure" sound effect from The Price Is Right. What's more, I didn't even meet my specific goals, as I only beat one of the four video games I promised I'd beat and also failed to complete the first season of The Wire. And though I know very few specifics regarding whether or not other blog members made any "progress" (or even if they care about making any at all), I know that Sweeney also stuck his neck out for the sake of specific goals and that he, like me, came up short; Partners in Time and Four Comedies were not completed this month. (I won't hold Left 4 Dead against him since I need to provide him with the means for that one.) But at least we went down in flames together, no? And we both have our excuses, but I don't think either of us feels obligated to defend ourselves.

Now let's talk about next month's goals. For me, simple progress would be wonderful. But that's a problem; progress is expected! The point of making monthly goals is to be able to quantify certain baby steps along the way to the ultimate goal of backlog completion. So here it goes. I will finish the first season of The Wire. I'm halfway there and frankly it should have been done already. Now, because August marks the beginning of TV on DVD release season, I know I'll be making some purchases. Several, even. So the only way to stay ahead will be to watch at least as many other DVDs. But I've learned not to promise too many specifics. And that is why on the reading front, I will claim in advance nothing but Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I've got another whole series or two in mind, but I'll neither spoil it nor blow another month with unfulfilled promises. And as for video games, I really don't know what to do. Obviously in order to make progress I need to beat something, but I'm just really not in the mood lately. It's a cyclical thing; trust me, sometimes there's nothing I want to do more than sit down in front of a TV for hours on end playing video games. But I had to really force myself to beat that Kirby game last month, and that only took like five hours. So let me just take a mulligan on LittleBigPlanet. If I can't beat that game this month, I should just give up on gaming in general. Huzzah!

Anyway, those are my goals. Sweeney, I invite you to make some of your own again. But only if you want to. And now, here are Marissa's. (Marissa has brought me onto her logging team as sort of a guide/coach/planner.) So I'll speak for Marissa and say that she will be posting about the following items this month: the original Star Wars trilogy, the second season of Friday Night Lights, and the first season of The Big Bang Theory. If she fails to make these five posts this month, she has failed. And failure is not an option for Marissa.

So that's that! I've gone over where we've been and I've laid out a plan for where some of us are going next. Within the week, it'll be the one year anniversary of the Back-Blogged project, and you can bet your ass I'll do a little bit more reflecting then.